Arithmancy
by vermouthsedation
Summary: Lily hates Arithmancy. Lily hates James. Now, how exactly does Lily go head-over-heels for James over Arithmancy again? OneShot.


I hate Mathematics. I absolutely loathe it, for the simple reason that I am just not good at it.

Back when I was in primary school with my Muggle friends. I had inexplicably failed every single Mathematics test. Sure, I was one of the top students, but somehow, I just could not comprehend the complexity of numbers.

Ten is supposed to be ten and twenty is supposed to be twenty. Now, you are telling me that fifteen can be either ten or twenty if you rounded it up. For the love of Merlin, why would I even want to _round up_ a number? Am I supposed to lasso it like they do with cows? How do I even lasso a fifteen?!

Mum and Dad had been most displeased with my inability in Mathematics but Petunia had been very encouraging, relentlessly coaching me – that is, until I received the letter from Hogwarts. She had made it very clear afterwards that on top of being a freak, I was very incapable of doing simple _normal_ things like additional sums but, that would be another story altogether.

While I had been extremely relieved and joyous that Hogwarts did not offer Mathematics, my nightmares about numbers began again in my third year when Rachel somehow convinced me to drop Divination and join her in Arithmancy.

"It's a fun class, Lily! Professor Vector is _really_ nice and even Professor McGonagall said it was of better use for our future than Divination," Rachel had enthused about it during dinner. I had immediately signed up afterwards.

However, when I attended the very first Arithmancy lesson, I instantly knew that I would have been better off pretending to see something in perfectly empty crystal balls.

"You didn't tell me Arithmancy involved numbers!" I hissed.

Rachel looked convincingly surprised.

"But I thought you knew!"

"I'm a Muggleborn, Rachel. How was I supposed to know what the hell Arithmancy is?"

Rachel then looked sheepishly at me. Years later, when I remember the entire incident, I'll know that she had purposely not informed me about the nature of Arithmancy. However, I had stayed in the class because I felt duty-bound as her best friend and besides, Rachel was as bad as I was in the subject.

"We're _so_ getting a T for Arithmancy," Rachel moaned as we entered the common room after dinner.

"I know. Do you think McGonagall will let us drop the subject this late?" I asked gloomily as we took our seats at an empty desk near a window.

"I doubt so. I still wonder how we passed our OWLs."

"Yeah, it still amazes _us_ actually."

Rachel and I looked up to see James and Sirius, looking down at us gleefully as Remus and Peter shuffled past them and took their seats with us.

Back in our sixth year, when this study arrangement first started between us and the Marauders, I had been very much irked. As much as I hated Mathematics, I disliked James more. For one, he was just so full of himself that I wondered how anyone could stand him. I do understand that he is acutely aware of his good looks and amazing Quidditch skills but did that warrant him such arrogance?

And then there was the matter of him picking on people who were relatively innocent. I attributed his meanness towards Severus to jealousy and after the incident in our fifth year, I did close an eye to it but he still did nothing about his lack of maturity, like hexing the Ravenclaw Quidditch captain for beating Gryffindor in a match. The poor guy was forced to walk around with antlers for a whole week before Madam Pomfrey fixed it.

Finally, and the one thing about him that absolutely infuriated me, he constantly kept asking me out. I do admire perseverance in a man but when taken into consideration his character and personality, I would choose the giant squid over him any day.

That is … until I found myself actually _liking_ him. All thanks to this study arrangement Rachel made with Remus.

While he had somehow matured over the summer before our seventh year, he still persisted in asking me out. Then, during our study sessions, we actually had civil conversations that did not end in a shouting match and coupled with the fact that we had to spend more time together due to our Head duties, I stopped referring him mentally as Potter. Slowly, I grew fond of him and it was a few weeks ago that I realized I had feelings for James Charles Potter.

"Hey, Evans," James greeted me. I dared myself to look up at him and he winked at me. I felt myself blush and I immediately looked down. Git.

Unsurprisingly, James took a seat next to me while Sirius sat next to him. For the next few minutes, we were silent as we took out our homework and it was only when Rachel extracted our Arithmancy homework did someone speak up.

"So, how's your Arithmancy going so far?" Sirius asked, smirking. Rachel scowled and slammed a textbook on the table so that it landed on his fingers. He howled in pain.

"Howling?" Rachel asked sweetly.

"Who, me?" Sirius asked blankly. "Nah, I bark. It's Moony who howls."

Rachel and I exchanged confused looks with each other as the Marauders laughed for the exception of Remus, who ignored them. Sirius promptly issued another snide remark at Rachel's direction and Rachel, never backing down from a fight, retaliated.

"So, how _is_ your Arithmancy going so far?" James suddenly asked me, amidst the noise between Rachel and Sirius. I noted a trace of concern in his voice that touched me.

"Er … Not that good, actually," I admitted sheepishly. To my surprise, I found myself showing him the test Professor Vector just returned the class that morning. A glaring, blood red D had been scrawled on the top left-hand corner. And to my greater surprise, James merely nodded understandingly.

"Do you need help with your homework?" he asked.

"But you don't take Arithmancy, Potter," I pointed out. James grinned.

"True but my dad taught me some basics that I think I can help you with," he replied as he looked at me sympathetically. I found myself gazing into his hazel eyes. I never realized how beautiful they were.

"Okay," I heard myself say, my eyes never leaving his. And then, suddenly, reluctantly, he looked away. I realized I was extremely put off and disappointed.

"Let's see where you went wrong in the test. Ah, I know how to do this question," James said. I leaned over to see which question he was looking at. It was a basic question where we substituted numbers with alphabets to find out more about something, be it a person or object.

"Do you understand the concept?" James asked me. I shook my head. He immediately explained how to substitute an alphabet for a number, using his name as an example.

"We have nine numbers – 1 to 9. So if we place the alphabets in sequence with the numbers, you will see that the alphabet A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H and I can be substituted with the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 respectively," James explained as he drew up a chart.

"What about the alphabets J onwards?" I asked, confused. James explained that the alphabets J to R would then correspond to numbers 1 to 9, and similarly for the alphabets S to Z. I nodded my head to show him that I understood.

"Alright, so you try substituting each alphabet of my name with a number. And then you add it all up," he said as he passed me the piece of parchment. I rewrote James Charles Potter on it and, by referring to the chart at the top of the parchment, matched each alphabet with its corresponding number.

"Good, now add up all the numbers together," James instructed. I inwardly groaned – this is where James would discover my abysmal ability in even simple calculations. However, determinedly, I picked up the quill again and counting _very_ slowly, I added up all the numbers together: a total of 73. I was then told to further add the numbers together until I had a single digit and with it, I got the number 1.

"So, there ... That's my Character Number."

"What is that?"

"Well, from your name, you can derive from it three different numbers which are your Character Number, Heart Number and Social Number," James patiently informed me. "Your Character Number represents your general personality, your Heart Number is to show your inner life while your Social Number instead is about your outer personality."

"And what do these numbers represent?"

"Well, each number from 1 to 9 can be correlated to a personality type. And according to your textbook," James said as he flipped through the pages of my Arithmancy textbook. "People with Character Number 1 are leaders."

James beamed and I laughed in amusement.

"Then I think we picked an appropriate Head Boy and Quidditch captain, Potter," I said. It was James' turn to laugh and I found that I liked it.

"Let's see what your Character Number is, Evans," James said as he took the quill from me. I watched as he wrote my full name, big and bold, across the parchment below his name; Lily Catherine Evans. After a quick minute of calculations, we found out that I was a 4 – practical, reliable and down-to-earth.

"That solves the mystery why you became Head Girl, then," James said, smirking. I slapped him on the arm but I nevertheless smiled. James looked down at my textbook again.

"Hey, it says here that people with the same Character Number are compatible!"

"Ah, that means we're not meant for each other," I pointed out, taking the parchment in my hands. James looked at the parchment, his face significantly crestfallen. Even though I did not look like it, I was as disappointed and downhearted as he was. _That means we're not meant for each other ..._ Those words echoed resonantly through me.

Suddenly, a huge grin spread on James' face and wordlessly, he snatched the parchment from me and began scribbling frantically on it. I looked at him, confused.

"Potter, what's going – ?"

The parchment was suddenly thrusted into my face. Over it, I caught sight of James looking absolutely ecstatic and the only time I had seen him that happy was when Gryffindor had trampled Slytherin in a bitterly fought Quidditch match earlier this year that culminated in their winning of the Quidditch Cup.

"Read it!" James urged, bursting with excitement. I looked down at the parchment and I felt a smile grow wider on my face as I slowly read what he had just written. Well, we _are_ compatible after all, I thought to myself happily.

"I cannot believe this!"

I handed the parchment back to James, who merely kept grinning at me.

"You're smiling."

"Yes, I am smiling."

"Because you like it that we are compatible."

"James. "

"You called me James!" James shouted triumphantly, now looking extremely joyous. I blushed and immediately looked down to conceal my face. A finger lifted my chin, so that my face was looking up at his.

"You don't need to be embarrassed, Lily," James said softly. I bit my lip.

"I – I don't know what to say. "

"Come on, this is solid proof that we are soul mates!" James declared excitedly, waving the parchment in front of my face.

"We are soul mates?" I asked in amusement.

"_Yes_," James eagerly replied. I gazed into his shining hazel eyes, smiling.

"So, does this mean that we have to marry?"

"I was actually thinking of you and me going out together the next Hogsmeade weekend but your idea is better," James replied, winking at me. I giggled.

"Next Hogsmeade weekend then?" I asked.

"Next Hogsmeade weekened," James confirmed, smiling. It was a small, innocently happy smile that rarely adorned his face. I decided that I liked that smile.

I looked down at the scribbled parchment and made a mental note to always carry it with me in my wallet. Barely suppressing the smile threatening to spill over my face, I re-read what James had written boldly and underlined:

**Lily Catherine Potter**

_A/N: Well, well .. I've finally uploaded my first fanfiction! Well, there was one before this but I scrapped it halfway because I didn't know how to continue with it. But I digress. A big THANK YOU to my beta, kaityb, and, if you've read this, to you too. (: Now, tell me what you thought of this piece. Good, bad or extremely horrendous until you had to pummel your computer screen? (Merlin, I hope not. .) So, please review! :D_


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